I 152 ] 



CHAPTER XX— Continued. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



SOOCHOW. 



By the Rev. H. Du Bose, D.D. 



KIANGSU'S CAPITAL. 



IN the United States of Brazil, Rio is the capital of eleven millions; in Eastern China, 

 Soochow of twenty-one millions. Throughout the eighteen provinces, "Above is 

 Heaven; below, Soochow and Hangchow" is a familiar proverb. The Buddhists point 

 their votaries to the Western Heaven ; the Taoists to the Isles of the Immortals in the East ; 

 but the practical Celestials consider it a sufficiently high privilege to pass their three-score- 

 and-ten in "Beautiful Soo." 



This is an ancient city. Could we go back two millenniums and walk along these 

 same streets we now tread we would see the father pointing the son to halls and palaces 

 covered with the ivy of centuries. For more than twenty-four hundred years have these walls 

 stood, and on these cobble-stone pavements eighty generations of men have passed to and 

 fro. Founded B.C. 500, it was laid out only 250 years after Romulus traced the walls of the 

 ancient mistress of the world whose glory for fifteen centuries has consisted in the broken 

 monuments of former grandeur, while during these latter fifteen hundred years Soochow has 

 been a literary and commercial centre. It was built during the lifetime of Confucius and 

 synchronous with the completion of the second temple at Jerusalem in the time of Ezra. 

 Its founder was Wu Tsezsii, who advised King Hoh Tii to build " a large and influential city 

 where his subjects could dwell in time of danger and where his government stores could be 

 protected from the enemies that constantly menaced his kingdom." The Prime Minister 

 traced the foundation of the walls, laid out the streets, opened the canals, built the bridges 

 and perhaps sold^the "corner lots." 



Our city is situated in the fertile and well-watered plain which lies between the 

 Yangtze and the Hangchow Bay. To the east the country is perfectly level and entirely 

 bereft of trees except a few at the hamlets. To the south-east are the hundred lakes, each 

 from one to three miles across, and the region so much like an archipelago that we do 

 not know whether it pertains to the domain of land or water. To the west is a range of 



